


Co-Dependency is a Bitch

by StarAfterDeath



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: AU, I can't write Batman worth shit, M/M, OCC - Freeform, The New 52 Riddler, Vampire AU, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 11:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15639606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarAfterDeath/pseuds/StarAfterDeath
Summary: Check this out:A vampire Batman AU where every vampire feeds on one particular person at a time, whom they “mark” as their “prey.” They can still bite and drink from other people, but it does not empower them as much as drinking from their chosen victim - for example, their regenerative abilities stop working if they are feeding on someone other than their prey, and the blood that comes from other people tastes different to them (not as good and addictive).So Batman becomes a vampire and happens to bite the Riddler while on a mission. Therefore, the two form a weird bond, and now Batman is forced to drink only the Riddler’s blood in order to keep himself alive. The Riddler complies, seeing this as an opportunity to obtain a certain sense of domination over the Bat. Of course, things don’t go the way he plans, which results in a bunch of uncomfortable situations, bordering on mild riddlebat.





	Co-Dependency is a Bitch

Edward sat behind the desk in a dark room, engulfed in the green glow of the computer screens, his chin propped in the palm of his hand. The soft humming of the system units provided a meditative background noise. He was lazily eyeing one of the monitors – looking but not seeing. His sight was fixed on one of the screens, but his thoughts were miles away. After a moment or two, he got up from his chair, muttering “What a pain in the neck. Quite literally.” An IV infuser was connected to his arm. The red liquid in the bag was slowly dripping away, looking almost black in the greenish light. What a guy’s gotta do? Serving as a walking cafeteria for one particularly picky vampire came at a price.

Dragging the IV stand behind him, Edward attempted to carry his bruised and bandaged body to the next room when he heard a loud thud in the corridor. Backing down slightly, he peeked from around the corner cautiously. A black mass suddenly materialized on the floor, oozing black substance from some unidentified place. A mixture of pain and frustration emitted from the creature’s mouth via small grunts. It was wounded and wounded badly. Edward stepped back into the corridor completely, all cautiousness gone from his movements in a matter of seconds.

“Well, riddle me this: what’s big, and black, and bleeding out on my freshly cleaned rug?” – he said with a smug grin.

There was no answer. Naturally.

“How many times should I tell you? If you’re planning to show up at my hideout, at least notify me beforehand. I cannot have you staining all of my furniture and flooring with your… uh… undead essence,” - he chastised as he walked closer to the creature on the floor. It looked at him with misty eyes, streaks of black substance visible at the corners of its mouth. “My. You really do look bad.” The line was uttered in an almost sympathetic manner. Or at least, it would have been, if Edward’s features hadn’t been distorted by the look of indomitable triumph almost a second after. He crouched in front of the black entity, his right arm still connected to the blood-transfusing contraption. He smiled sweetly, tauntingly, as he spoke.

“Look at you. World’s greatest detective. Gotham’s knight in shining black armor. Choking on his own blood in an abode of someone he used to brutalize on a regular basis without so much as a flinch. How does it feel, hmmm?” The creature kept grunting in pain. This time, however, among the usual sounds of suffering, something resembling human speech emerged:

“N… Nuhh…”

“Pardon me, detective, but I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re saying. Speak up.”

“N…Nygma…”

“That would be my nom de plume, yes.”

“Y… your bl… blood…”

“Awww, you’re thirsty. What a pity. Because I do not think I have any blood cells to spare at the moment. I had a bottle of scotch somewhere though. If you’d like, of course.”

The creature reverted to its previous routine of heavy breathing and pain-induced grunts. Its black mask with pointy, ear-like extensions was cracked in several places. The creature was facing the floor, its gaze unfocused, close to delirious.

“You know,” Edward started, grasping its jaw and lifting it, forcing the creature’s eyes to meet his, “I can leave you like this. In fact, I’d love to. I‘d love to observe your pathetic, helpless attempts to hang on to your train wreck of physical existence until the last gasp passes those horrendous fangs of yours. Can you imagine this? Right now, I, Edward Nygma, The Riddler, hold your life in my hands! And I can choose to let you die, Batman.”

The Caped Crusader held his gaze, but there was no reason in his own eyes. The Batman everyone used to know was reduced to a panting, bleeding mess that hardly even registered what Edward was telling him. Apparently, the blood loss and the thirst were making him lose every last bit of sanity he had struggled to retain before. When he teleported to his unlikely companion’s hideout, he was at least visibly conscious. Now, however, his brain seemed to be shutting down with every passing minute, neuron by neuron. Edward sighed. He pulled the IV needle out of his right arm and extended it in front of Batman. Rolling the sleeve higher, he said in an almost patronizing manner:

“Just so you know: I’m not doing this because I want to; it’s more like I have to. As much as I hate you, Dark Knight, it would be a crime to extinguish a mind such as yours under these circumstances.”

Batman did not answer. The moment the smell of blood hit his nostrils, he lost any ability to speak (along with the measly remains of his ability to think). Grabbing tight onto Edward’s arm, he savagely buried his fangs in another man’s flesh, penetrating the vein. Edward bit his lower lip in order to keep himself from whimpering like a pathetic little blood-slave he was. Ah, he hated this term. Other vampires referred to their prey this way, and it always sounded extremely racist, for the lack of a better word. What a disgrace, however. This could have been a great way to eliminate the Bat once and for all. But NO. He had to care. He had to make it his own damn business. The thought of a lonely new world without anyone to match his intelligence rammed its ugly head into his train of thought and derailed it into a ditch of wordless panic and confusion. Indeed, the prospect terrified him. Not as much as the blood river streaming out of his right arm, however. Edward noticed the dizziness only then. The room began to spin and his eyes started getting heavy. Everything around him slowly turned into a blur. In this reverie, Edward felt a slight prickling sensation in his lower lip. “Those damned fangs of his,” - he thought half-consciously. So inconvenient, really. What was the Bat thinking, grazing his lower lip like that? Uh. Hold up. Hold the fuck up.

He focused his sight as best as his fading mind allowed him. Through the half-lidded eyes, Edward made out the face of the Bat, pressing against his. _“My lip. Of course. I bit it so hard it bled. And since this monster has lost too much blood of his own, he’ll try to get his filthy mouth on whatever he can as long as it’s red, smells of copper, and comes out of me.”_

Batman had his hands on both sides of his prey’s face; however, his movements were not as crude as before. They felt less ragged and sloppy and more leveled, human-like now. He was almost careful as he continued to suck the blood out of Edward’s lip. The rogue’s mind struggled stubbornly against the sweet oblivion, threatening to swallow him whole, but the defeat seemed inevitable. At that moment, something thick and warm ran down his chin. A momentary wave of nausea swept him as he felt the same sticky substance creep into his throat. He swallowed instinctively. It didn’t taste like blood.

_“_ _Shit. If Selina saw this right now, she would maim us both.”_

In truth, however, Edward could not care less about the social implications the present scene could have – sexual or otherwise. He was much more concerned about the loss of blood he was going to suffer, and whether the Bat would choose to make up for it afterward. He always did somehow… No matter how much blood he robbed him of, he always managed to restore some part of it – a typical technique that vampires used to keep their prey alive until they got bored of it. Batman was not like other vampires, though. Even after the transformation, he struggled to uphold his stupid principles – the righteousness, the nobility, the no-kill rule – the whole shebang. It wasn’t his choice to mark Edward as his prey in the first place – just a tragic (from Edward’s point of view, at least) coincidence. He tried to limit said coincidences to this one time, however, and never even thought of moving on to another hapless loser with yet untainted blood vessels after leaving Edward with a broken neck somewhere in a river on the outskirts of Gotham. Usually. But today… Today was a little different. If somehow, after all that Edward dared to say to the Caped Crusader in his moment of weakness, he decided to prolong his life until the next feeding session, he would have to do a hell of a job to make up for all the blood he drank. This, Edward thought, might actually be the end of The Riddler…

–

His eyes fluttered open as his mind slowly ascended from its exsanguination-induced coma. Edward assessed his surroundings as swiftly as he could – a bedroom. A familiar bedroom. Definitely his hideout. He was lying on his bed. His whole body was in a state somewhere in-between numbness and aching. The arm… Oh, the needle was back in its place, and the IV stand was communicating the red liquid to his veins once again. A few regions on his arm had fresh bandages on them. How courteous, considering the fact that the one who applied them was responsible for whatever scratches and bruises they were covering.

“You’re awake.”

The gravelly voice came from one of the corners of the room. The entrance. Edward turned his head in the direction of the sound, which sent a plethora of unpleasant sensations throughout his body. The Caped Crusader was standing in the doorway. Seemed like he entered the room just in time to witness his prey come around.

“I wouldn’t necessarily call it being awake,” – Edward snarked – “More like being mistakenly conscious when, by all accounts, I shouldn’t be.”

“I fed you some of my blood”

“Spare me the details, please,” – the self-proclaimed genius turned his head to look at the ceiling. He was hardly in a condition to investigate this process right now. Maybe later. Provided that he’s still alive by that time.

“Was I out for long?”

“Eight hours.”

“You’ve been here all this time?”

“I have.”

The rogue couldn’t help but let out a condescending chuckle.

“How truly kind of you.”

“You need to rest, Nygma,” - Batman turned around, intending to leave.

“Wait.”

The black figure stopped. An eerie silence settled in immediately.

“My lip hurts like crazy.” He couldn’t see him, but he was convinced, if the Darker-than-usual Knight wasn’t facing him up until this point, he sure was now.

“My apologies.”

“Come again?”

“I don’t remember much of what happened before the… feeding. I was losing a lot of blood and acted on impulse to restore it as soon as possible.”

“Was shoving your tongue down my throat also done on this impulse?” Pause. “Exactly how much do you remember, might I ask? I mean… before you regained your senses.”

“About 18% of what was going on at the time, give or take. I don’t remember anything that transpired after I teleported to your place.” Ha. Well, this riddle can be crossed out of the list. Fantastic. He got to torture the Bat and get away with it. Wait until the Joker hears about thi-

Suddenly, his interlocutor took a few steps towards the bed. Edward’s body would visibly tense up if it wasn’t so weak.

“Don’t take it the wrong way, Nygma. You were losing consciousness and I had to act fast. My mouth was bleeding. Pushing some of that blood directly into your mouth was the fastest course of action I could resort to.”

“Oh. So it was just a part of your personal ‘No Prey Left To Die’ program. And here I thought you cared,” – Edward’s tone was completely flat, sarcastic.

“We have a symbiotic relationship, and I’d like to leave it at that.”

“That was a joke, Detective. I hope you know I’m not interested in extending your dependence on me any further.”

Another eerie silence. This time Edward could not resist looking at him despite the annoying mixture of aching and numbness in his body. “Want to tell me who did this to you? I think, as your personal blood bank, I deserve to know at least this.”

“We’ll talk when you’re rested,” Batman said, turning around, threads of darkness enveloped him as he walked away.

“Sure we will.”

The ceiling lamp flickered as the room grew silent once again. It was finally… batless. Edward sighed with a content smile.

“Stuck around for eight hours after I almost let him die, and he still claims he’s only in it for my blood.” Another sigh, this time – a manifestation of pure defeat. “You’re almost making me feel appreciated, Detective.”


End file.
